The Words That Haunt His Nightmares
by jazzyproz
Summary: This One Shot is a little glimpse into the darkness of two little words that haunt Booth's nightmares. M for language and content; no smut.


**A/N **

**Hi. This is a one shot. It could be considered kind of tense. If you don't like violence, you might want to skip paragraphs 24-30, or there abouts….**

**It's not really any worse than what we see on the show, but I know sometimes reading a scene and watching a scene can lead to two totally different experiences. **

**And I hope you all don't hate me as you're reading this….**

**Disclaimer. As usual, I don't own anything…. **

The Search & Rescue team members fanned out into the darkness, following Booth's silent signals as he extended his arms to his right and left, out-stretched fingers indicating how many people he wanted in each direction and who he wanted following him directly. The agents hoped their night vision goggles would provide them an advantage as they traversed the uneven ground of the inky forest, anticipating that the kidnapper would not have a pair of his (or her) own. Everyone understood that radio silence was pertinent unless, of course, something was found worthy of alerting the team. Right now, the only things that would warrant verbal notification would be finding the perp, finding the victim or spotting empirical evidence of either's presence. No one questioned Booth's lead on this mission; no one asked why there were no search dogs baying and howling into the otherwise silent night. They were searching for one of their own, they were searching for an important member of their law enforcement family who'd been abducted.

They were searching for Temperance Brennan.

The men and women slipped silently through trees, expertly navigating the root-studded, debris-covered ground. The wet, mossy floor beneath their feet gave way as they moved at a rapid, steady pace, leaving behind only sodden indentations recognizable as the shapes of their boots.

About a half-mile into the thickly wooded area, Alpha Team, Booth's team, came upon the coordinates they'd been striving towards. After ensuring no one besides his team was in the immediate area, he ordered his small group to kill the night vision and search the ground using their flashlights. A quiet rustle through the leaves soon revealed the quickly-dying cell phone, the battery life down to only four percent. Locating additional signs, Charlie motioned to Booth, indicating the direction the people had taken, based on footprints left behind. Nodding in agreement that the tracks did, in fact, support his assistant's assumption, the team moved in silent unison, everyone watching for additional clues through their night vision once more.

A startling announcement interrupted everyone's concentration.

"Echo Team has a visual. Lone figure, 10-47, appears to be male. Approximately fifteen yards north of our 10-20." The code 10-47 told Booth they believed their target was armed and their 10-20 was Echo Team's location.

Glancing at his tracking device to determine the location of his Echo Team, in relation to his own position, Booth spoke in this throat mic.

"Hold position. 10-22: do _not _engage. Hold and observe. Closing in from the west." He waved for his team to follow. "Repeat: 10-22. I mean it." His 10-22 order simply told Shaw and her team that Booth wanted to handle the face to face interaction that was bound to occur, and he didn't want someone else screwing things up.

"10-4, sir," Shaw replied and held her team in place with a fist in the air. "I can see your approach. Our target is holding position."

Booth gripped the soaking wet vest of the squirrelly blond man, spinning the stranger around to face him and slamming him to the ground simultaneously. His movements were smooth and silent, a skill first learned as a child trying to survive in an abusive home and later perfected by the training involved with being a US Army Ranger. He definitely had the advantage of surprise... The man hadn't even heard their muted approach. He kicked the stranger's assault rifle out of reach.

"Where is she?" He growled threateningly in the man's dirty face. "You piece of shit, where the hell is she?" He raised him inches from the forest floor and pounded him down again. The agent's anger and fury were boiling over, his glare turned deadly when his prisoner said nothing. "You tell me where she is, mother-fucker, or you're gonna wish you were dead."

"You Booth?" The scrawny man questioned, trying to catch his breath after having it forced from his lungs when he'd been taken down by the larger man.

"Goddamn right, I'm Booth. Now," he tightened his fist on the man's jacket, holding him on the ground, straddling the skinnier man and sitting on his abdomen, "tell me where my partner is." Booth's jaw was clenched, he was spitting in the blond's face.

"Heh," the stranger fruitlessly struggled to move. "She cried for you… All night long she cried for you," his lips curled back into an evil snarl. "She begged for you to save her while I pounded into her over and over… What a great lay she is-"

The man was silenced by a granite-like fist to his nose. "Where is she? What did you do to her, you cocksucker?" His grip around the man's neck tightened and he ignored the hands trying to physically pull him from his prey. Shaking off a particularly strong grip that he recognized, somewhere in the back of his mind, as Charlie's, he pressed his thumb against the suprasternal notch in the man's throat. "Where. Is. My. Partner?"

The smaller man coughed and attempted to say something, but couldn't get the words out given his position. He gasped and narrowed his eyes, staring up into the hard, angry ebony eyes threatening him. He felt Booth flex his hand, allowing him to intake a small stream of oxygen, and he took advantage of the movement, filling his lungs as much as possible. Just as the large hand tightened once again, he sputtered the words. The two tiny words that had filled Booth's nightmares through seven years of partnership.

"She's. Dead."

Booth pulled the greasy blond up and banged his head against the ground once more. "No she's not! _Where the fuck is she_?"

"She," he coughed, "fought." The swarmy smile pulled back to reveal uneven, yellowed teeth. "She lost."

Booth pulled back and began pounding his fist into the man's face, breaking bones and shredding flesh. Every ounce of anger, grief, torment and worry coursed through his muscles, exiting through his fist. "You good-for-nothing sonofabitch. _You fucker_!" He continued his relentless pounding, throwing his weight behind each strike, feeling the man's life slipping away little by little.

"Booth!" Charlie's voice echoed through the fogginess of his brain. The engranged agent could hardly distinguish between the sound of his own blood pumping through his ears and the muddled intrusion of his junior agent's voice filtering into his ear. "Booth!" Charlie grasped Booth's shoulders, finally pulling his boss off the broken man. "Listen!"

Stumbling backwards, he fell to the ground, kicking at the still body of the man who'd taken his partner from him.

"Booth!" Charlie was pulling him to his feet. "10-84," he said quietly, breathlessly. Seeing that Booth wasn't focusing enough to process the code, he clarified. "They found a body, Booth." It was blatantly obvious that Booth still wasn't comprehending the words yet. "BOOTH! _LISTEN _TO ME!" He shook the much larger man by the shoulders, facing him directly. When he finally found Booth's focus, Charlie spoke softer, whispering to ensure Booth was paying attention. "They found a body," he pointed off to their side. "About a hundred yards out, Booth… They found a body."

Feeling the cold fingers of reality grip his entire being and turn his veins to ice, Booth forgot how to breathe. "Wha-what?" His eyes moved from his friend and settled over to his right, seeing the movement of lights dancing upwards against the barren trees. Without waiting for Charlie to repeat himself, Booth took off running, crashing through the underbrush, his sniper rifle bouncing against his back. "BONES!" He hollered through the darkness. "BOOONNNEEESSS!" He skidded to a halt, sliding on wet leaves as he struggled to keep upright. He took in the scene unfolding around him.

The motionless, naked body of a woman was lying face-down in the decaying forest floor detriment. Her dark hair was splayed around her head, littered with leaves and dirt. Her skin was pale - _deathly_ pale he immediately determined. Life was no longer flowing through her body.

"Don't touch her!" He screamed at the man kneeling at her side, ready to turn her upward. "Take your hands off!" Booth grabbed the man's jacket collar, unapologetically yanking him away from the person. Away from _his Bones_, he struggled to rationalize. "_Move_!" He growled and replaced the man, falling to his knees beside the woman's body.

In one terrifyingly comprehending glance, he absorbed their surroundings and the position in which the body was displayed. The woman had been tortured, that much was obvious, and she had been brutally raped. There were bruises and lash marks across her back and legs, marring her milky porcelain skin. Twine had been wrapped around her ankles and tied to nearby trees, pulling her legs out, leaving her spread-eagle and vulnerable. Booth felt like he was going to vomit. Her arms were stretched out above her head, tied to another tree in the near distance. Her knuckles were bloody, her fingernails torn from her fingers. Yes, she had fought, and she fought hard, there was no doubt about that.

Seeing the flash of a camera, Booth whirled around in place. "Put that away!" The pride, the protective nature he had always felt for his partner bubbled to the surface. "Get away from her!"

"But, sir," the man was cut off.

"Get the fuck away from her!" Booth noted only briefly that Charlie was pulling the other officer aside. He turned back to the cold body beside him.

"Bones," he muttered through barely contained tears; his fury, and his sorrow, and his regret all threatening to spill over at any moment. "_Oh, Temperance_…" His voice was husky, his throat felt raw. With trembling fingers, he reached for a matted lock of hair, pulling it slowly back to reveal her face. He closed his eyes to still himself against the wave of nausea washing over him, and to gather his fraying emotions in preparation for seeing what would certainly be a battered and beaten face.

Slowly opening his eyes, he felt like someone had struck him in the gut.

"It's not her," he whispered, no one else hearing him.

"It's not her," he said slightly louder and knew that, at the very least, his junior agent heard, because Charlie suddenly squatted down beside him. Raising relieved, yet equally terrified eyes to his assistant, Booth repeated himself before beginning to bark out orders to the scattering of officers gathered in the immediate area.

"It's not her! Fan out, people! She's still out here somewhere! _**FIND HER**_!" He shot to his feet and looked at the previously dismissed investigator. "Get pictures of this scene, don't touch anything! My team will need everything uncontaminated!" He immediately turned back in the direction of the piece of shit he'd just beaten to a near pulp and ran at full speed back to the disabled man.

"Where the fuck is my partner, you sack of shit!" He was back on his knees beside the bedraggled man, gripping his jacket and tugging him upward. "TELL ME, DAMN YOU!"

"Around here," he coughed, "_somewhere_…" The man foolishly taunted Booth and was rewarded with a swift punch to the gut followed by a crunching blow to his nose, which ultimately rendered him unconscious. Booth pushed to his feet and took off into the woods, calling into the darkness for his partner, hearing his colleagues calling out as well.

After weaving in and out of trees for the better part of an hour, a tight bunch of broken branches jutting out into his path caused him to stop dead. Glancing around, he saw no other officers running the particular path he'd chosen. He pulled his night vision goggles down and glanced around again, not seeing anyone. He raised his goggles and turned on his flashlight, focusing on the broken limbs.

"Unit 3548, I have evidence of movement out my way," he spoke into his throat mic. Knowing his movements could be tracked and located by any member of his team, he didn't bother giving his coordinates. "I'm heading further in." His flashlight swept across his path, searching for any sign of someone passing this way before him. After several minutes, he spotted a smudged clump of moss near the base of a tree. Someone had stood there, close to the trunk with bare feet. Indentations of toes were obvious and in his mind's eye, Booth could envision the scene that played out here. Initially, the person's back was to the tree, the heels tight along the base. Then the position shifted and the dainty footprints turned around, toes facing the tree, their position "v'ed" out, cradling the root, as if the owner of those feet was peeking out from behind his or her hiding place. _Her hiding place, _Booth determined. The feet were thin and long, the weight they carried not excessive and evenly distributed. Scanning outward from the base of the tree, Booth employed every tracking sense he ever possessed, reached down deep into his soul and pulled the strings to his Ranger skills, drawing them to the surface, reviving them as if he were in a warzone. He realized that, if he was going to find his partner, he had to detach himself as much as possible. He had to study the trail, find the path that she cleverly left behind for him to find, and follow it.

Feeling a sense of order enter his soul, his sweeping gaze settled on a disturbed area of muddy land. Her toes dug into the earth when she pushed away from her temporary safe harbor, leading him further into the opposite direction of where they'd found her abductor and the deceased woman. Still cautious of who he was trailing, but feeling more and more confident that it was his partner, he spoke quietly into his throat mic.

"I think I have a trail over here, Charlie. I have footprints. Someone running - bare feet."

"Behind you by about 30 yards, Booth," his voice crackled quietly into Booth's earpiece.

When Charlie joined Booth at the tree, he agreed with the assessment and waited for a couple more members of their team to arrive while Booth took off in the direction of the tracks. He followed the path as far as he could by flashlight, picking up traces here and there of a heelprint or toe-dig. When the tracks led into a grassy area, he trailed his eyes slowly across the dew-covered blades, looking for any anomalies that would indicate the direction his runner took.

Not seeing anything that offered him insight, he killed his flashlight and pulled his night vision goggles down again. An uneasy feeling began to creep into his limbs, the hair on the back of his neck pricked to attention.

"Going dark," he whispered softly into his mic as he crouched down, scanning the area. In the distance a blurry mass stepped into the brilliant green light filling his line of vision and Booth stamped down his urge to run towards her. He silently thanked his instincts as the muddled image separated into two shapes - one walking behind the other. The image out front - very obviously a woman - had her arms raised and fingers locked behind her head. The image following close behind - a man - held a gun against the lower back of the woman, nudging her forward. Booth silently observed for a few minutes and then quietly spoke to his colleagues over the radio.

"I have visual confirmation of two people: one female, one male. To the east of my 10-20. The male is armed, ushering the female in a north-west direction. Everyone go dark, radio silence again - we're not alone out here, boys and girls. Moving in." He ended his communication and, remaining in a crouched position, moved towards the figures, growing more and more confident that the woman in front was his partner. She was the right height, the right build and walked with a certain gait, which until that very moment, he didn't know he would recognize so blindly. She was stumbling, he noticed, and knew instinctively that it had been _her _bare feet that made the tracks that led him there. She must have gotten away from her captor, fleeing into the forest, but he'd caught up with her. That meant there was more than one perp… at least two because blondie was back there where Booth had left him, dying on the damp earth near the scene that had first turned Booth's stomach.

When she stumbled too much and fell, lunging forward, Booth noted that she didn't lower her arms to break her fall.

"Sonofabitch," he growled under his breath. _He's got her hands bound behind her head, she can't protect herself. Fucker…_ He doubled his trailing effort, giving them a wide berth as he approached, not wanting the asshole tipped off to his impending approach. As he closed the distance at a rapidly increasing pace, he watched as the man pulled her roughly to her feet and shoved her forward, causing her to stagger even more.

"Move it, bitch! Or I'll kill you right here and leave you for the buzzards. When they start circling, _then _your friends'll find you…"

"You won't get away with-"

The man placed a hand on the back of her head and pushed her down to the ground. "Shut up! You don't get to tell me what I will or won't get away with! I took you, didn't I? Yes, I did! And if my demands are not met, you're gonna end up like that other bitch whose family failed her." He pressed his gun into the back of her head. "You want that? Huh? You want me to let Peter have his way with you and then knock you off?"

As Booth closed in, he could hear Brennan answer, but he couldn't understand what she said.

The guy's ire grew. "NO! _They didn't_ and now she is DEAD! Just like you'll be! Your people got 25 minutes to complete my orders. After that, your precious Agent Booth'll find nothing of you except your used, abused and very DEAD body! Not stand up! Get moving!"

"Stay down, Bones!" Booth called from behind her captor, aligning the crosshairs of his rifle scope over the center of the man's head. "Drop the gun, asshole. It's too late." He growled, moving smoothly across the remaining distance. "Now," he threatened, pressing the tip of the flash suppressor into the base of the man's skull, but the man continued to aim at his partner. "You have until the count of three before I blow your brains all over this pretty little meadow."

"Booth?" Brennan tried to turn her head, but her position on the ground and her fastened hands made it nearly impossible. "Booth!"

"One." He addressed the prick standing in front of him. "You'll be alright, Bones." Booth assured his partner while not taking his eyes off the gunman. "Two." He pressed harder, feeling the man flinch against the muzzle of his gun. "Stay real still, Bones. It's about to get real ugly up here." With a final press into the man's neck, he whispered. "Three."

Immediately raising his hands and throwing his gun to the side, the man yelled. "WAIT!" He placed his hands behind his head without further direction, interlacing his fingers in place. "Wait! OK, OK!"

Booth grabbed the back collar of the man's coat and swung him away from his partner's prone body. "On your knees, asshole!" He shoved him to the ground and spotted members of his unit moving in quickly. "Charlie!" He motioned to his assistant, turning control of the unknown over to him.

"Booth?" She was struggling to sit up, using her elbows to push her body upwards. "Booth!"

Slinging his gun over his shoulder and dropping to the ground, he began taking care of his partner, cutting the zip tie that was holding her wrists behind her head. "It's OK, Bones. I've gotcha." He was pulling her against him, engulfing her partially naked body into the safety of his embrace. "I gotcha."

"Booth," she mumbled into his neck, fighting the mutinous tears that began streaming down her face when she first heard his voice cut through the darkness. "Booth, there's another one..." She coughed through her tears, panic edging into her voice. "There's another man... He's blond and smaller and..."

Booth's wide hand cradled the back of her head as he started to pull off his coat, keeping one arm around her at all times. "Shh, I know," he spoke against her hair. "We got him, baby, we got him." The moniker slipped out unnoticed as he draped his FBI jacket around her trembling, naked torso. "You're safe now, Bones." Booth pressed a kiss to her temple and then another on her forehead. "That guy's not gonna hurt you, or anyone else, ever again." Scooping her into his arms completely, Booth settled his partner onto his lap as he sat on the cold ground, not even feeling the dampness penetrate his pants. "I got that sonofabitch."

Brennan let Booth rock her in his arms. She felt her body, which had been rigid with tension for two days, slip into a slight relaxation. The warmth and protection that her partner provided was all-encompassing and she yielded to his need to comfort her, and, if she was brutally honest with herself, to her own desire to be comforted by him. Gripping his thick arm with both her hands, as she sat sideways across his thighs, she nuzzled her nose against his throat, pressing a quiet kiss against his suprasternal notch, just below his prominent Adam's Apple.

As he felt her cool lips on his neck, he thought about pressing his thumbs into the man's throat earlier that evening. Peter was his name, and through the static-filled conversations transmitting through his earpiece, he learned that Peter was now dead. Booth felt no remorse in killing him, but was sorry that Peter's suffering wasn't longer.

Pulling his earpiece from his ear, Booth also disconnected his throat mic; this moment was private, not to be broadcasted across the entire S&R team. "Did they hurt you, Bones?" He asked her quietly, ignoring the noisy drone of activity coming to life around them.

Leaking further into him, she nodded. "A little. But not like they hurt Lily. She is out here somewhere, Booth. I think she's probably dead. I heard the screams...I heard what Peter was doing to her..."

"Yeah, I think we found her." His voice caught in his throat and he buried his face in her windblown and knotted hair. "I was so fucking scared that it was you, Bones. You have no idea..." He inhaled; even after two days of being held captive, he could still smell the unique scent that was simply 'Bones.' "I thought I'd lost you..." He palmed her head, tucking it firmly beneath his chin. "What did they do? To you, I mean..." He needed to know the extent of her injuries.

"Mostly they hit me. I think the forth and fifth phalanges on my left hand are broken from when I hit back... And I might have a couple of bruised ribs." She inhaled slowly. "And they took my shoes, so I've been running through the forest barefoot for a day; my feet are in pretty rough shape, I think." She felt a wave of regret wash over her at complaining about her feet. The man who saved her had been actually tortured, his feet broken in every way imaginable. She had no business complaining about some cuts and bruises and torn toenails. "I'm sorry, Booth. I didn't mean to-"

He cut her off, not wanting her to apologize for anything. None of this was her fault. "_I'm_ sorry we couldn't find you sooner, Baby." It slipped again, and this time Booth caught himself. But he didn't apologize, he didn't retract his endearment. Eventually his true feelings were going to come out. And if he had it his way, it would come out later that night, after he got her home safe and sound.

In his mind, he replayed the 9-1-1 call that had brought them to this corner of the Maryland border. "That was brilliant, what you did, Bones." He pressed another kiss to the top of her head. "With your phone..."

_Agent Booth? We've received an emergency call to 911 this evening with instructions to contact you... _

_"My name is Dr. Temperance Brennan," her whispered voice was trembling with fear, but Booth also heard determination in her tone. "I need you to contact Special Agent Seeley Booth with the FBI D.C. Field Office with this message and do not break this phone connection. I am going to leave the call connected on my end and bury the phone beneath a pile of dead leaves. My team will be able to trace the location of my phone. Do not speak once I'm done, because they will hear your voice over the earpiece. Tell Agent Booth to hurry. I don't know where we are, but we are in a heavily wooded area. And they plan to kill me by this time tomorrow." There was the sound of struggled rustling. "I'm burying the phone now. Call Agent Booth..." _

_And that was it. That was all Booth heard of his partner's voice in that 9-1-1 recording. It was thanks to the brilliance of his genius partner, who, in the midst of danger, found the sound voice of logic, leaving a trail of metaphorical breadcrumbs so he could find her. _

Still clinging to him, she silently nodded, waiting several minutes before speaking.

"At one point, when I fell, I grabbed Peter's bag to try to stop from falling. When he fell on top of me, I felt through the canvas of his backpack that there was a phone in there. I didn't realize until that night when I snuck it out while they slept, that it was mine. Once I knew that, I knew you would be able to find me." She pressed a kiss of her own against his chest, startled by the growing commotion surrounding them. Someone calling for an ambulance and stretcher, someone else barking orders for containing their prisoner... She inhaled deeply, taking in a lungful of Booth's soothing cologne and continued. "I pocketed the phone, crawled back over to my sleeping mat and waited until I knew they hadn't noticed my movements. When I felt it was safe, I powered it up inside my pocket and pulled it slowly out, flipping the volume button to mute. Once I had dialed 9-1-1 and buried the cell beneath the leaves, I knew it was almost over. I tried to leave trails for you to follow, I broke branches and stomped my feet heavily and fell as often as possible."

"You did great, Bones." He held her tighter as the EMTs approached. "Now, let's get you to the hospital." He started to shift, preparing to rise, when her grip on his arm tightened fiercely.

"Stay with me, Booth." She didn't want to sound weak. Never in her life had she ever requested that someone accompany her to an examination. But on this night, she needed her partner. She needed to tell him things.

"Of course, Bones," he reassured her and then raised his voice just enough. "Charlie can handle things here, right man?"

"You bet, boss!" Charlie nodded knowingly. "It's all under control." He immediately turned back to his charges, issuing the final orders for processing their crime scene.

Looking down into the begging blue-grey eyes staring up at him, he snuggled her closer, ignoring the emergency personnel that had surrounded them, trying to get to Brennan. "I'm afraid you're stuck with me, Bones. They don't need me 'round here..." He smiled gently when he saw the relief written all over her face. "I love you." The hushed words fell from his lips without permission and without fanfare, but he didn't attempt to hide them or quantify them in any other way than simply what they were. He loved her, and he almost lost her, and dammit, he wasn't about to water them down to an 'atta girl kinda way.'

An exhausted and grateful smile spread slowly across Brennan's face. "Thank you, Booth." She knew she loved him back but, try as she might, she couldn't say the words yet. Instead, she palmed his stubbly cheek with her cool, slim hand and stretched up, wincing only slightly at the pull of her ribs. Her lips met his in a soft, sentiment-filled kiss that told Booth everything he needed to know. "I'm so glad," she spoke against his lips, letting her tears fall down her cheeks, as she felt people closing in around them.

"Agent Booth? Dr. Brennan?" The emergency responder interrupted. "We need to get you to the hospital, ma'am," the young man seemed to apologize with his eyes for the interruption, but noticed the blood covering Booth's hands, and wanted to ensure Dr. Brennan's health was out of danger. "You're bleeding," he motioned to her back, assuming incorrectly about the presence of blood.

"What?" Brennan cocked a brow curiously.

"Agent Booth's hands... You're bleeding onto Booth's hands." He pointed, trying to be helpful.

Not removing his eyes from his partner's face, the Agent corrected the medic. "No she's not. That's not her blood..." Brennan swiveled questioning eyes back to him and he clarified. "It's Peter's blood..." He shrugged with one shoulder. "But we _do _need to get you to the hospital, Bones. I'll ride with you." The longer his hands remained still, Booth began to feel telltale signs that he hadn't felt for quite a while. "Hell, I might have a broken finger or two, as well." He winked as she struggled to convince her weary legs to lift and carry her just a little further. When he noticed her pain, however, it took only one quick nod to the EMT and the young man was at her side, pulling her gently up from Booth's lap. Once he was standing, however, the agent took over as his partner's stabilizer, knowing she didn't want to be taken in on a stretcher. "C'mon, Bones, the sooner we get patched up, the sooner we can get home." His arm was strong and supportive around her waist as they moved. "And I'm not letting you outta my sight for a minute, so, you better get used to it..." He steered them in the direction of the awaiting emergency vehicles before she could argue. But to his surprise and relief, she didn't seem ready to fight back, she simply nodded and let him support her as they moved, physically relying on him just as she had been emotionally depending on him for years.

"I love you, too, Booth." She whispered once they were in the back of the ambulance, speeding towards the ER, her head resting against his shoulder as the medic examined her hand.

"I know." He answered just as softly. And he _did_ know. He had known for years.

**Postscript A/N **

**So I don't really know where that one came from. I outlined it in my mind on a 2-hour car ride and had to crank it out when I got home. **

**I hope it wasn't too 'out there' or unrealistic. I mean, I know most of the things I write are pretty AU, but hopefully this was OK. **

**Looking forward to hearing from you. **


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